Rating

8Overall

8
Applicability

8
Innovation

7
Style

Recommendation

Fran Hawthorne began writing about pension dumping in the 1980s and her expertise is evident. In this excellent book, she provides clear explanations about why pension dumping exists, why the practice will continue, and how the laws and organizations created to protect workers against pension dumping often abet it instead. You work all your life to put some retirement money together and should be able to count on the promises made to you. However, too many people are finding that those promises were written in disappearing ink. getAbstract recommends reading this book to understand what you are up against, to know what distinguishes defined-benefit plans from defined-contribution plans, and to see why those differences matter. Hawthorne also teaches you why business executives, investors in distressed firms, bankruptcy judges and even union leaders are willing to throw retirees under the proverbial bus to keep companies running. Even if the book is a bit too technical in spots for the average employee who needs to grasp these matters, the subject’s importance should inspire you to embrace and understand the daunting technical terminology of pension legislation and regulation.

In this summary, you will learn

Why companies are dumping defined-benefit pension programs

How U.S. bankruptcy laws permit pension dumping

Why the problem of pension dumping persists

Summary

Why Pensions Are Being Dumped Until the last 20 years of the 20th century, people who worked at major American companies often had the promise of lifetime pensions after decades of loyal work. However, as the U.S. economy changed and some very large companies went through bankruptcy, Americans...

About the Author

Fran Hawthorne is the author of three previous books and writes on financial issues for The New York Times, Crain’s New York Business and other publications. She first wrote on pension dumping for the publication Institutional Investor in 1983.